


Now and Then

by hardboiledbaby



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: Comment Fic, Community: fic_promptly, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-25
Updated: 2012-08-25
Packaged: 2017-11-12 20:46:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardboiledbaby/pseuds/hardboiledbaby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, he tries to imagine what it would be like to be settled down with one woman.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now and Then

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a fill for [this prompt](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/151444.html?thread=6907796#cmt6907796) on the DW fic_promptly comm.

It's entered his mind, naturally: the thought of getting hitched, having a family, of finally putting down roots. Becoming, of all things, _respectable_. It's certainly been brought to his attention often enough, mostly along the lines of "it's high time you ought to, Buck." Sometimes the admonition is well-meant and kindly and sometimes it isn't, but it is nearly always accompanied with the unspoken warning of _before it's too late_ hanging in the air like low-lying storm clouds heavy with August rain.

So now and then, Buck tries to imagine what it would be like to get married, to settle down. And finds he can't.

It's not that he has too much 'animal magnetism' for just one woman, even if that is what he tells JD. It's not that he objects in principle to the idea of settling down. He rather likes the idea, in fact. He knows that lust and love are two different things, but he also knows that with the right person, sometimes they are the same thing. Belonging to one other and one other only, finding a fixed point around which to wrap his life... no, Buck doesn't object to that at all.

But when he tries to imagine it for himself—a pretty wife on his arm, sweet faced and smiling up at him—Buck simply can't see it.

No, the face Buck sees is all unshaven angles and hollows, piercing green eyes and the Devil's own grin. Chris ain't sweet or pretty, and Buck certainly can't marry him.

It's a hell of a thing, and the irony of it isn't lost on him. He has, as Josiah once observed, worshiped at the altar of Aphrodite, often and very ardently. Yet, when it comes down to it, Buck has never laid his heart there. His heart belongs to... oh, Hephaestus, he supposes. Yes, that sounds right: the god of the forge, because he's been through the fire and back with Chris—Buck has the scars to prove it, and he will carry those scars until the end of his days.

So when the question arises now and then, about how really, isn't it high time he ought to settle down, Buck just smiles and shakes his head. It's not their fault, of course. They don't know that it's already too late.


End file.
